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NAACP Chapter President Is Actually White and the Internet is Pissed and/or Confused

This is a thing that's actually happening.

In news that will make you shake your head/contemplate the world in general, a Washington NAACP chapter president has been disguising herself as African American for years, but is in fact white. You read that sentence correctly.

BuzzFeed reports that Rachel Dolezal has been leading the NAACP chapter in Spokane, Washington for six months, is an Africana Studies adjunct professor at Eastern Washington University, and chair of her city's police oversight commission. However, Rachel's parents told various news outlets that their daughter isn't black, but comes from European descent. From their quotes, they think that their daughter's advocacy efforts would be just as effective (if not more) had she been open about her true identity.

"Unfortunately, she is not ethnically by birth African American. She is our daughter by birth. And that's the way it is," her father Larry Dolezal told The Washington Post.

Her mother Ruthanne Dolezal opened up to The Spokesman-Review about her daughter, saying, “It’s very sad that Rachel has not just been herself. Her effectiveness in the causes of the African-American community would have been so much more viable, and she would have been more effective if she had just been honest with everybody.”

And, perhaps most biting of all, Ruthanne essentially called her daughter crazy for lying about her ethnicity all this time. “She’s not being rational in what she is saying,” Ruthanne told The Seattle Times. “It’s certainly not being realistic or honest. That demonstrates some instability, in my view.”

But it gets more confusing. Rachel herself has evaded questions about her ethnicity for years now. Check out this Vine of a reporter asking her if she's black and her vague AF answer that makes zero sense whatsoever.

Needless to say, the Internet is very angry and confused by all of this. Some are even supporting Rachel, saying that identifying with a different race is a legitimate struggle. (#WrongSkin is a hashtag many are using.) Check out these visceral Twitter reactions to Rachel's unfathomable story:

What do y'all think about this situation? Sound off in the comments below.